Launching Envoy comes closer

Weather is getting warmer, with daytime temp about 24d, and since we arrived there’s only been one day of rain. At this stage our blog has been mostly technical, because our whole focus is getting Envoy into the water. I left the boat for the first time yesterday, when Di & I went into Marmaris for a drink and dinner. Every day except Sunday, from 0800 to 1800 we've had various contractors doing their bits, and they want me present.
Here is a contribution from Di.
General living in Marmaris is interesting, sometimes frustrating yet hilarious and never dull. I’ve always enjoyed grocery shopping in different countries; comparing prices and products and looking at the general layout of the supermarkets and shops. In Marmaris there are two large supermarkets and both sell an extensive range of products; food items downstairs and electrical goods, clothing, toys, bedding and general kitchenware etc upstairs - it’s not that much different from home. The challenge of course is the language and trying to somehow understand what it is you are looking at. The pictures on the products are often misleading; on one occasion I bought what I thought was a tin of tuna, only to discover (before we ate it, thankfully) that it was cat food! GST on food here is 8% and goes up to 18% on some items like batteries. All imported food is very expensive; Colemans mustard $19 a jar and my favorite Costello cheese $15 for a small wedge! The local Turks mostly shop in small corner grocery stores, that are everywhere, and so jammed full of things you can hardly move. I always take my “granny trolley “ with me when I go shopping, and leave it parked safely outside any shop knowing that it will be there when I come out. The Turks love to barter, and are delighted to take advantage of a susceptible tourist, but they are honest. They have a wonderful sense of humour, especially the women - who love to play jokes. All laundry at the marina has to be weighed and is priced accordingly - $1kg if you do your own, or $3.50kg if the laundry ladies do it. After they had weighed our laundry they told me to jump on the scales as well. I watched in horror as the kilos kept getting higher and higher - surely I hadn’t been over-eating that much. The ladies were laughing their heads off; one of them had her foot on the scales!
Another surprisingly pleasant experience was going to the dentist. I had chipped my tooth, and it looked like I was needing a crown. We had often been told of the great dentists in Turkey; that they have the latest technology and were extremely well trained. It turned out to be one of my best ever dental visits. The dentist was very gentle and spoke good English, and I had no pain. What a great, quick job he did, and I’m now the proud owner of a lovely porcelain crowned tooth - all for the grand cost of $175. No wonder all the boaties in the marina are queuing up to get their teeth done here!
Eating out is fun, we’ve found a great restaurant close to the marina run by a couple who operated a restaurant in England for the last 8 years and have come home to raise their kids here. Mains range from $20 up to $30 for steak meal. Wine is a worry though, and our tongues hang out for a good NZ chardy or Aussie shiraz.
Ah well, it seems some things in Paradise are not perfect!
Technical
Some major progress in the last few days and launching looks to be in about three weeks, with departure a couple of weeks later, fingers crossed.
- Antifouling is completed (a very nice job), boot stripe to be done.
- Naiad stabilizer fins have been removed, bearings checked and greased and seals replaced. This was a major, taking three guys three days. Parts alone over $2,000. It was also “mission-critical” as the seals had to come from USA, and there are several different varieties of seals. I wanted to be sure this job was completed in plenty of time in case the seals were not the correct ones. One of the engineers will come out for a sea trial to check all OK.
- Our engine is cooled by re-circulating fresh water through a heat exchanges mounted on the keel – called a keel cooler. Our keel cooler through-hull fitting had a slow sea water leak in 2007. Demir were supposed to have removed this, reconditioned the through-hull and re-sealed it. However this was over looked, possibly as it’s in a cow of a position to get out. They’ve now taken it out (after some carpentry to improve access), reconditioned the through hull and re fitted it.
- The pump which supplies cooling water to our refrigeration had a broken outlet fitting. Demir have repaired this, along with our spare pump, which was also broken in the same place.
- Installed reconditioned sea water pump providing cooling water to stabilizers, as was leaking previously.
- The re-galvanized anchor chain has been marked at 10m intervals, and put back on board – windlass working fine.
- Steering checked and seems OK – can’t test fully until in water.
- RIB has been lifted off Envoy by a large crane and taken away for reconditioning. Tubes to be cleaned and slow leaks fixed, new set of tube covers to be made and fitted, seats to be re-upholstered, fiberglass hull to be sanded, faired and re-painted, nav lights & 12v power outlet to be fixed, hole in deck to be repaired, Yamaha to be serviced.
- A small section of the bilge, under the prop shaft has deteriorated and the gelcoat there needs renewing to prevent bilge water seeping into the hull laminate at the keel. A very difficult place to access, but Demir have removed the old gelcoat and we’re now letting the area dry before Demir lay some new glasscloth and gelcoat. Helping the drying process with hot air gun - pretty uncomfortable laying down there!
- Most navigational equipment – radars, vhfs, SSB, Navtex has been tested and OK. Only problems found are bow thruster and side nav lights not working.
- Re-provisioned our supply of flares.
- Our boat cover did a wonderful job in protecting Envoy during 27 months, and represents a sizeable investment at about $5,000. This has been cleaned, repaired and folded into newly-made long term storage bags. We also got Hashim to make storage bags for our two dehumidifiers, recondition the cockpit canopy and custom-make three large deck storage bags.
- The high-gloss varnish on our exterior teak had deteriorated, so the varnish has been stripped back to bare teak and is to be teak-oiled. Demir recommend this as opposed to varnish, due to maintenance issues in the Med heat.
- Checked and repacked our emergency “grab bag”; enough gear in there to last us several days if we ever have to abandon Envoy.
- Mounted four smoke detectors throughout Envoy and checked and agitated all extinguishers.
- Cleaned our three bilge pump pick-ups - see photo.
- Got our HP printer working.
- Checked boat deck winches (one function not working) and replaced all shock cord
Main things to be done now are:
- Get the fuel filtration system operational and start filtering our diesel.
- Get toilets and fresh water systems running.
- Main engine prop shaft and cutlass bearing still to be installed (can’t be done until bilges job completed).
- Get the three engines running.
- The gelcoat on hull, topsides and decks is being professionally cleaned, cut and polished, as not done since 2006.
All sounds simple doesn’t it, but good news is there are plenty of ticks off the list and nothing much being added.